Richard Blumenthal, Lead Threatener Of Craigslist, Doesn't Even Have Jurisdiction Over Prostitution

from the totally-bogus dept

We've discussed in the past how Connecticut Attorney General (and Senate candidate) Richard Blumenthal is one of the most ridiculous grandstanders out there -- especially with his bogus threats against tech companies, often with absolutely no legal basis. However, it turns out that it goes beyond just the fact that Blumenthal regularly ignores the actual laws involved (such as Section 230 safe harbors). Blumenthal, of course, has been leading the terribly misguided attack on Craigslist for having some prostitutes use the service. Once again, the law is pretty clear that Craigslist is protected by Section 230, and if Blumenthal really was concerned about prostitution, we've wondered why he doesn't go after the actual people involved for breaking the law -- as actual law enforcement officials in Connecticut have done.

As Connecticut's Division of Criminal Justice explains on its website, the state's attorney general "has no jurisdiction whatsoever over criminal matters and no authority to prosecute criminal violations of the law."

So, here we have an attorney general, who you would think knows both the law and his own jurisdiction, going to the press and grandstanding, rather than filing an actual lawsuit because (a) he can't actually file the lawsuit and (b) even if he could, he'd lose.

Reader Comments

A few thoughts.

Why does this remind me of that case where the Lacrosse players stood accused of raping a girl, and yet at least one showed that he was in a different place, receipt and everything, until that AG was disbarred for bad behavior?

It seems to me that the entire power of an AG supercedes a need to be right on the subject involved.

Re:

And yet CL turned over faster than a drunk whore. Their lack of balls is astounding.

That's not true at all, really. They've been fighting this for at least 3 years. They stood firm for a while, then did a "settlement," which didn't help, so they did a second "settlement." And now this. What's really ridiculous is that the reason the AGs are so upset this time is that CL makes money from these ads. The only reason they started charging for those ads in the first place was because of the first settlement, where the AGs pressured CL to start charging for CL ads in order to figure out who placed them.

what?

"What's really ridiculous is that the reason the AGs are so upset this time is that CL makes money from these ads."

I thought they were complaining about underage sex trafficking. You mean they are complaining because when they told Craigslist to charge for their ads they didn't realize they would make money from them. Yeah, the AGs are pretty dumb.

Thanks for fighting our fight Mike. So glad to have a smart guy like you in our corner.